


Asshole (Idiot)

by ThePlagueBeast



Series: Clexa One-Shots [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22013074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePlagueBeast/pseuds/ThePlagueBeast
Summary: “No one came even close to comparing to you.”Clarke really wants to throw the rest of her coffee at her, but instead she just snarks a bitter, “I’m flattered.”The wince she gets in response is actually more satisfying than if she’d thrown her coffee, plus she still has her drink.orLexa breaks up with Clarke
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Series: Clexa One-Shots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661992
Comments: 21
Kudos: 218





	Asshole (Idiot)

They, the three of them, had been friends as long as she could remember. Inseparable. For better or worse they were a package deal at all family functions and school events, and if for some reason one couldn’t make it the other two were boisterous enough to make up for the difference.

It surprised half the people around them when Clarke and Lexa started dating. The half that weren’t surprised had been the ones to see them when Costia wasn’t around. How their attentions shifted from almost aggressively platonic to a kind of deeply caring affection that left those who saw them feeling the idea of forever.

It surprised _everyone_ around them when they broke up.

~~~

“I… I can’t do this anymore, Clarke,” the earnest look on her face is too much, she can’t breathe, she knows what’s happening, she’s seen the writing on the wall, but she can’t even be mad she’s too busy breaking, “I can’t love you the way you deserve to be loved.”

Isn’t that the worst part? Clarke loves her so much and never once, not for a moment, has she ever doubted the love she got in return. She never felt like it wasn’t enough. Which explains why she’s not the one breaking them up right now.

She can’t speak, if she speaks she’ll cry and if she cries Lexa will try to comfort her and she’ll just absolutely fucking shatter and that’s not how this should play out. It’s not fair to either of them if Lexa winds up holding her together while breaking her apart.

So she nods, and she turns, and she leaves.

~~~

No one sees her for a month, and maybe it would’ve been longer but she hasn’t blocked anyone on anything so she gets the message when it comes that Costia’s dad died and she really needs her now. So she bucks up, buckles down on her emotions, and goes to meet them, to be a good friend.

~~~

She steps inside the loud bar they decided to meet up at, one she’s never been to before but maybe they have, she wouldn’t know. As she makes her way through the mass of people she keeps an eye out for her friends. Well, friend and boy-is-it-complicated-let’s-not-talk-about-it.

And she sees them.

And she wishes she hadn’t.

Because the sight of Lexa alone is enough to make her choke on air and struggle to breathe. But the sight of her kissing Costia is enough to make her turn around immediately and leave without a word.

She doesn’t know if they saw her (they did) and she doesn’t reply when they message her again (they’re worried) and even still she can’t bring herself to block them.

~*~

Neither of them see her again for another six months. They know she’s alive, and okay, because they have mutual friends who mention her in conversation, but every single one of them shuts up about her if they ask. They stop asking. Lexa doesn’t stop wondering.

She texts her one day, she’d been going through the garage, found some old things of Clarke’s, tells her to swing by whenever to pick them up. There’s some family photos of her’s that must’ve gotten mixed in at some point, she knows she’ll want them.

~~~

When she opens the door it’s not Clarke. It’s Octavia, and she looks like she wants to murder her.

“I’m here for Clarke’s stuff,” she states, looking like it’s taking every ounce of self control not to punch her in the face.

“I… She sent you?” Lexa asks, she’d hoped, she’d really hoped she’d get to see her best friend again, finally.

“She didn’t send anyone. I came so she wouldn’t have to try and pull herself together long enough to do it herself. She’s gonna hit me when she finds out but it’s better than seeing her like she was the last time she saw you.”

Now Lexa kind of wishes she’d just been punched in the face because the idea that just being near her could cause Clarke pain, it was almost too much to bear.

Octavia takes in her slapped expression, gap-mouthed and eyes wide. “She’s still in love with you, you idiot. Do you think being around you could be anything _but_ painful? And you know what? I don’t even get it! Why can’t you just leave her be?”

And Lexa knows she’s maybe been overbearing from time to time with the texts and the messages and the voicemails but she’s been worried and she hasn’t heard a word back in half a year and she knows her best friend is out there suffering.

And she chokes on her words when she finally says, “Because I love her.”

And the look Octavia gives her makes her wish she could just die on the spot, “You probably should’ve told _her_ that.”

She takes the bag of Clarke’s things and leaves.

~~~

She stops trying to get in touch after that. Because she’s rethinking everything she thought she’d known about herself. About love and how to love and how to be loved and whether she wants anything to do with any of it at all anymore.

She stops talking to Costia.

She doesn’t blame her, but she never understood what was going on with her and Clarke and maybe she didn’t give the best advice but she’d taken it because they were all friends and shouldn’t she want them to be happy?

Maybe she was just an idiot the whole time. No, no maybe about it. She’d been an idiot the entire time. But especially when she’d decided that she knew more about what Clarke wanted, needed, than the woman herself.

Her arrogance broke them, all three of them, but it broke Clarke most of all.

~*~

It’s been a year and she’s finally stopped dreaming of Lexa. She realizes one morning, unsure of when exactly the last one had been, but grateful that the aching loneliness that always followed wasn’t there anymore.

It’s been a year since she’s seen her face, she’d carefully purged her presence from every aspect of her life short of removing her contact information. Because no matter what, if Lexa really, truly needed her, she’d go.

But she does screen her calls and she does leave her texts unread and in general does her best to pretend that she doesn’t exist. 

It’s easier than it was.

She goes whole days, almost a week once, without thinking about her. It seems every time it’s a little longer before something reminds her, and she doesn’t flinch and she doesn’t cry when she’s reminded. She remembers, and then ignores, and moves on.

Because that’s what Lexa wanted her to do.

~~~

She tries to date, she really does, but when you loved someone so deeply for so long it’s hard to have anything but a shallow relationship with anyone else. So she takes the shallow. And in her darker moments she laments the irony that Lexa left her because she couldn’t love her how she thought she deserved, and now she’s out here with no love at all.

It makes her want to hit something.

~~~

They finally see each other again at, of all places, a wedding. Octavia and Lincoln are tying the knot and Clarke’s there for Octavia as a bridesmaid and Lexa’s there for Lincoln as family and they spend the entire weekend at the resort dancing around each other.

Clarke refuses to be within ten feet of Lexa and Lexa seems unable to be more than a hundred feet away from Clarke.

They’re in orbit and everyone can see it decay over the weekend until finally they’re standing side by side at the reception, close enough to the bar to have fresh drinks but far enough that they can pretend half their mutual friends aren’t waiting to see what happens.

There’s money on a fight, and for those betting on it, there’s more money on Clarke winning.

~*~

Despite how much she’s been hoping for this moment, Lexa can’t think of a single damn thing to say. There’s so _much_ , too much, and they all get caught in her throat trying to be the first one out.

Clarke is standing next to her, close enough to touch if she were so brave or so stupid or so selfish. But she isn’t looking at her.

“Why are you here, Lexa?” She sounds… tired.

“Here at the wedding or he-”

“Right here, right now. Why are you standing next to me?”

Lexa stares at the side of her face, tries to wrestle her competing thoughts into something coherent enough to speak. She flicks her eyes down, then away, out over the party still on-going.

“I’m here…” She swallows. “I’m here because I’m an asshole. And an idiot. And… and I get it now, what I did, I get what… I just. Fuck it, it’s pathetic and so much less than you deserve but I have to say it at least once.” She looks back, still the side of her face, “I’m sorry.”

Clarke nods, once and slowly, and steps away.

Lexa doesn’t follow.

~~~

She’s not sure if it’s a prize or a punishment but Clarke starts letting her back into her life. Here and there, usually something little a shallow like sending a meme that made her think of Lexa. But it means everything, because she’s thinking of her.

Lexa reciprocates, and struggles to not be too much. She doesn’t want to break whatever this newfound peace is between them. There’s so many things left unspoken and their contact is fragile and she doesn’t want to give Clarke even a hint of a reason to run again.

She thinks she’d die if she ran again. How long can you live without your heart?

~*~

It’s been almost another year, and they’re almost sort of friends again. It still hurts, being around her, but it hurts less every day. She’s not sure if that means she loves her less or if she’s just built up an emotional callus to her presence. She’s not sure which one she’d prefer.

They’re chatting, out somewhere, like they do. Coffees and walks with pit stops at benches and pointing out things in store windows. So there’s a breeze to remind her to breathe when Lexa almost too-casually says, “You haven’t mentioned dating anyone.”

She nods, it’s true, “Hard to mention what’s not there,” is all she says, almost desperately taking a gulp of her coffee because this conversation is one she so badly doesn’t want to have. She’s not sure she’ll ever want to have it with Lexa. She just got her back in her life in a way that doesn’t kill her slowly.

Lexa seems surprised, looking over quickly and raising a brow, “I… really?”

Clarke nods, tries not to scowl, “You?”

Lexa’s head snaps forward, “No. No one.” She pauses for so long Clarke almost hopes she’s going to drop the subject but of course it’s Lexa so she says, “No one came even close to comparing to you.”

Clarke really wants to throw the rest of her coffee at her, but instead she just snarks a bitter, “I’m flattered.”

The wince she gets in response is actually more satisfying than if she’d thrown her coffee, plus she still has her drink.

“I…” she trails off, eyes dropping to the sidewalk. It takes her an age before she finally looks at Clarke, catches her eye, and says with almost painful earnestness, “I’m an idiot. And an asshole. I thought you could do better than me. I was… convinced you deserved better.”

Clarke’s eyes squeeze shut, “I didn’t want _better_ I wanted _you_.”

“Yeah I… realized that a little late,” Lexa nods, still watching her, both hands wrapped around her coffee so she doesn’t do something stupid.

Clarke struggles against herself, visibly. She knows what she’s going to say she just, she so badly doesn’t want to say it, but when she opens her eyes she knows the words are going to come out and there’s no stopping them so she keeps her eyes shut and savors these last few seconds before she gives Lexa the keys to destroying her all over again.

She blinks her eyes open and her voice is somewhere between strangled and defeated when she admits, “I _still_ want you.”

~*~

Half the people around them are surprised when they start dating (again). The half that aren’t were there before, when they’d been so obviously in love, they could still see it even when they were fighting it.

It seemed to catch Clarke and Lexa by surprise most of all, but then Clarke was very good at fighting her feelings and Lexa was very bad at recognizing them, so that wasn’t a surprise at all. 

It takes more than a year before they settle into something like their rhythm from before, Clarke is skittish and Lexa is trying not to be overbearing, and neither of them can really fault the other. But they both want this to work, so they talk, and if Clarke has to remind Lexa not to make decisions for her, and Lexa has to remind Clarke not to run away when she’s feeling hurt, then they do. And they listen.

And after enough time has passed the two years they were apart is just a sore memory, with plenty of happier ones to distract them since then.

~~~

“I’m an idiot-”

“-and an asshole-”

“-shut up, you’re ruining it!” 

Clarke smiles at Lexa’s exasperated face and Lexa’s trying desperately to will her heart to slow down.

“Please, start again,” Clarke waves for her to resume.

Lexa rolls her eyes, “I’m an idiot,” Clarke nods, “and an asshole,” Clarke smiles, “and I’d love nothing more than to be yours for the rest of my life.”

The startled wide eyes on Clarke’s face are 100% worth the redo, she notes as she pulls the ring from her pocket. Much easier to hide without a box.

She sees the tears and part of her aches because she hates being the reason Clarke cries, no matter what kind of tears, but she really _really_ hopes those are happy tears.

Turns out, they were.

**Author's Note:**

> Did anybody cry with this because I cried writing it and I'm not sure if that's just because I was massively drawing on my emotions from my own breakup or if it's actually hitting anyone else at all.
> 
> [Yell at me on Tumblr plz.](https://theplaguebeast.tumblr.com/)


End file.
